Clemency denied for ill Indiana inmate

Execution of man for killing state trooper set for Friday

Execution of man for killing state trooper set for Friday

MICHIGAN CITY Â? Norman Timberlake says he canÂ?t escape the voice in his head, the voice that has threatened him and told him to slash his tattooed arms with a razor.

He says he doesnÂ?t know where itÂ?s coming from. He has looked around his 12-by-10-foot cell in the Indiana State PrisonÂ?s death row, checking the wall sockets and elsewhere.

During an interview at the prison, Timberlake said that at one time he thought it was Satan talking to him, but then he decided it was some kind of machine operated by government authorities.

Timberlake is scheduled to die early Friday by lethal injection for the 1993 murder of Master Sgt. Michael E. Greene, an Indiana State Police trooper. The state parole board turned down his final appeal for clemency Tuesday, unanimously declining to recommend clemency to Gov. Mitch Daniels.

A lanky, bespectacled guy who talks with a southern-Indiana drawl, 59-year-old Timberlake suffers from paranoia and schizophrenia.

An order for post-conviction relief recently filed with the Indiana Supreme Court acknowledges his mental illness. It quotes a report filed by psychiatrist Dr. George F. Parker that says Timberlake is mentally ill but not insane.

"During the clinical interview,Â?Â? ParkerÂ?s report says, "it was abundantly clear that Mr. Timberlake was severely mentally ill and suffers from essentially continuous auditory hallucinations. He has created an elaborate paranoid delusional system to account for the continuous auditory hallucinations, which torment him both day and night.Â?Â?

Timberlake has refused treatment for his illness, the doctor said, because he is convinced he is not mentally ill.

Despite evidence of psychosis, hallucinations and paranoid delusion, Parker concluded, "it was clear, at the time of the clinical interview, that Mr. Timberlake had the mental capacity to understand that he was about to be executed and why he was to be executed.Â?Â?

Two of TimberlakeÂ?s 12 siblings told the parole board Tuesday that he has been mentally unstable since he was a child.

Nathan Timberlake apologized to the family of the slain trooper and asked them not to hold the family responsible for the killing.

GreeneÂ?s son and daughter asked the parole board to reject clemency for Timberlake.

A priest at St. Adalbert Catholic Church in South Bend, the Rev. Tom McNally, has been ministering to Timberlake at the state prison.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

On Wednesday, see more of this story in the South Bend Tribune and a video of the interview with Norman Timberlake at www.southbendtribune.com.